Professional Practice Development Worker

About Us

At West Sussex County Council, we're committed to making a positive difference to the lives of the people and communities we serve. Our employees are at the heart of everything we do, and we strive to create a supportive, inclusive, and dynamic working environment where people can thrive, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and reach their full potential.

Our Adult Services teams embrace a strengths-based approach that focuses on prevention, reablement, independence, and wellbeing. We work collaboratively with residents, families, communities, and partners to ensure people receive the right support, at the right time, enabling them to live fulfilling and independent lives.

This is an exciting opportunity to join West Sussex County Council's Quality, Practice and Service Development Team, where you'll play a vital role in supporting learning, professional development, and practice excellence across the county.

We recognise that excellent outcomes for residents begin with a skilled, confident, and supported workforce. That's why we're committed to investing in professional development, creating opportunities for learning, and supporting our staff to be the very best they can be.

Why Join Us?

This is a fantastic opportunity to influence professional practice, shape workforce development, and contribute to the ongoing improvement of Adult Social Care services across West Sussex. You'll be part of a supportive team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning, while helping practitioners deliver the very best outcomes for residents and communities.

This is a rewarding and varied role for an enthusiastic, self-motivated professional who is passionate about high-quality, person-centred practice and developing others to achieve their potential.

Working Arrangements

This role requires travel to locations across West Sussex to support learning and development activity. The post also involves delivering face-to-face training sessions and occasionally transporting training materials and equipment.

We operate a hybrid working model. This means you'll work from the office at least one day per week, with flexibility to organise the remainder of your working week in a way that supports both service needs and work-life balance.

About The Job

Salary: NJC Grade 12, £29,620 to £31,543 per annum
Working Pattern: Part-time, 22 hours per week
Contract: Permanent
Location: County Hall Chichester or County Hall North Horsham (with countywide travel required)

As a Professional Practice Development Worker within the Adults' Quality, Practice and Service Development Team, you will provide professional learning and development support, alongside subject matter expertise, to both registered and unregistered occupational therapy staff across West Sussex.

Working with practitioners at all stages of their career, you will support occupational therapy students, apprentices, newly qualified professionals, and experienced practitioners. Drawing on your professional expertise, you will help identify learning needs, contribute to service improvement initiatives, and develop innovative training and support solutions that strengthen practice across Adult Social Care.

You will collaborate with colleagues and external partners to promote best practice, enhance professional capability, and contribute to workforce development priorities across the organisation.

A Unique Opportunity to Influence Professional Education

A key aspect of this role is supporting and developing our Teaching Partnership with Higher Educational Institutes. This provides a valuable opportunity to shape and influence how we work together to develop the future occupational therapy social care workforce.

You will contribute to a range of partnership initiatives, including:

• Supporting Practice Educator and Mentor development for Occupational Therapists across all social care teams (adults and children)
• Supporting the progression of Occupational Therapy Assistance, newly qualified Occupational Therapists and Senior Occupational Therapists.
• Contributing to Occupational Therapy professional development programmes, including Master's level learning opportunities.
• Supporting student and apprentice placements across the organisation.
• Support research in practice opportunities and evidence informed practice including reflective practice groups (outcome measures)
• Developing opportunities for people we support and their carers to meaningfully contribute to co-production, learning, and workforce development.

Experience and Skills

We are looking for someone who:

• Is a Registered Occupational Therapist.
• Has a proven record as a practice educator and mentor.
• Has a Postgraduate professional qualification in Occupational Therapy.
• Has experience of delivering a learning, or other, people focussed service
  including business needs identification, solution development delivery and
  evaluation.
• Demonstrable evidence of relevant advanced theoretical health and social care concepts and practices and detailed organisational knowledge relating to continual professional development
• Has knowledge of the wider health and social care legislation, organisational policies, practices and procedures. In depth knowledge of
  specialist area(s) as appropriate.
• Demonstrable evidence of undertaking discreet project work to develop and improve service design and processes in response to new or amended legislation, RCOT or HCPC practice and regulatory reform.
• Sound IT knowledge to produce reports and analyse data.

Please review the job description for the full list of essential skills, experience and qualifications and explain how you meet them within your application.

Rewards and Benefits

For a full list of the benefits offered to you as a West Sussex County Council employee you can find them on our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further Information

The reference number for this role is CAFHE06482.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Meg Brownings (Principal Occupational Therapist) at meg.brownings@westsussex.gov.uk. For issues or queries regarding your application please contact hrrecruitment@westsussex.gov.uk.

To apply, upload your CV and complete the application explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to HCPC registration, an enhanced DBS check, 5 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion, accessibility and diversity is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all cultures, ethnicities, identities, backgrounds and lived experiences, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

For information regarding your eligibility to apply for this role under our Disability or Veteran’s Guaranteed Interview Scheme (if you meet the essential criteria), this can be found on our application help page.

Note for Recruitment Agencies: We prefer to hire people directly, but we do have a supplier list for when we need a helping hand. We'll be in touch directly if we need you!